Local bats diversity exceeded the regional bats diversity in Xinjiang, China
Pei-Pei Dong1, Wen-Jia Gao1, Rui-Rui Wang1, Shamshidin Abduriyim1,2,3*
1 College of Life Science, Shihezi University, Shihezi 832003, Xinjiang, P. R. China
2 School of Life Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, P. R. China
3 Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Key Laboratory of Oasis Town and Mountain-Basin System Ecology, Shihezi University, Shihezi 832003, Xinjiang, P. R. China
* Correspondence to Shamshidin Abduriyim
College of Life Science, Shihezi University, Shihezi, 832003, Xinjiang, P. R. China
Email: shamshidin@shzu.edu.cn
1 INTRODUCTION
Chiroptera (bats) are one of the most successfully evolved taxa in all of mammalian evolution. With over 1400 species, they are the second largest order of mammals after rodents, and are found throughout the world, with the exception of the poles (Solari & Baker, 2007; Wilson & Mittermeier, 2019). They carry many naturally occurring epidemic diseases as well as a variety of newly emerging infectious pathogens. More than 200 different virus species have been found in bats to date (Moratelli & Calisher, 2015; Wu et al., 2016). Chiroptera is one of the most sophisticated eating mammal orders, mostly feeding on insects, while certain species have been known to consume fruits, pollen, or nectar. A few species suck animal blood (Calisher et al., 2006). Bats promote the succession of tropical forests and hasten the recovery of degraded regions, such as abandoned pastures (Galindo-González et al., 2000; Muscarella & Fleming, 2007), by acting as mobility agents for the seeds and pollen of hundreds of species (Wang & Smith, 2002; Kunz et al., 2011). From the standpoint of more immediate human welfare, bats play a crucial role in agriculture by functioning as biological agents for the suppression of important agricultural pests, minimizing plant damage, and increasing crop yields (Maine & Boyles, 2015; Taylor et al., 2017; Aguiar et al., 2021). Shortly, bats provide vital ecosystem services in the form of insect pest consumption, plant pollination, and seed dispersal, making them essential to the health of global ecosystems.
Bats have been on Earth for more than 50 million years (Teeling et al., 2005). Based on their morphology, genomes, and other characteristics, bats are further divided into two suborders: Yang bat suborder (Yangochiroptera) and Yin bat suborder (Yinpterochiroptera). The Yin bat suborder primarily uses vision to navigate, whilst the Yang bat suborder has significantly impaired vision and a sophisticated auditory system to adapt to the requirement to gather information about the surrounding environment by echolocation, hence the name echolocation bats (Bruns & Schmieszek, 1980; Griffin, 1974; Ulanovsky & Moss, 2008; Sulser et al., 2022). There are many different types of echolocation bats, which can be broadly divided into three groups based on the frequency composition patterns and characteristics of the echolocation acoustic signals they emit (Bruns & Schmieszek, 1980; Neuweiler, 2003; Jones & Teeling, 2006; Altringham, 1996; Smotherman et al., 2016): frequency modulated (FM) bats, whose vocal signals are downward sweeping FMs; constant frequency-frequency modulation (CF-FM) bats, whose vocal signals start with a very short FM component followed by a longer CF component; click bats, which have the ability to use echolocation and normally create a broadband (up to 80 kHz) sound signal for a brief period of time (40–50 μs) (Brewton et al., 2018). The CF component of the CF-FM bat echolocation signal primarily analyzes velocity-related data, whereas the FM component primarily analyzes distance and target detail data (Schnitzler & Denzinger, 2011; Kober & Schnitzler, 1990).
To identify bats, researchers often combine morphological characteristics with molecular techniques (Abduriyim et al., 2022), but sample collection is frequently challenging and capturing bats in the field can be harmful to them. Species identification and species diversity monitoring based on echolocation sound waves using acoustic sampling and machine learning are excellent techniques for bat conservation since the echolocation sound waves of bats are species-specific (Mac Aodha et al., 2018). Thus, it is possible to identify the species of bats in a given location by capturing their acoustic waves with an expert ultrasound recorder, evaluating them using acoustic spectroscopy, and doing so without disturbing the bats. The echolocation sound spectra of various bat species differ significantly according to species, and more than 80% of bat species can be correctly identified using echolocation sound waves (Papadatou et al., 2008; Russo & Jones, 2006; Sun et al., 2006).
With more than 140 recognized species, China has one of the highest bat species diversity rates in the world (Jiang et al., 2020). Although there are many different species of bats in the wild, more than half of them are currently experiencing rapid population declines (Frick et al., 2019), with bat numbers in China decreasing by 50% in just 20 years (Zhao, 2020). Bats are primarily threatened by habitat loss and degradation (Clarke et al., 2005; Andrews, 2018), pesticide usage (Liu et al., 2018; Heiker et al., 2018; Hu et al., 2016), anomalous global temperature change (Welbergen et al., 2008; Jones et al., 2009), and the effects of urbanized light and noise (Stone et al., 2015; Song et al., 2019; Jiang et al., 2019). Bat surveys and taxonomic studies have become more important as a result of the focus on ecological protection and enhancement of the ecological environment, as well as global climate change, more frequent human activities, and the introduction of significant human-animal epidemics. Understanding the background resources of bats will allow us to not only finish revising the previous classification system and possibly find new distributions, new record species, or new species, but also to provide crucial taxonomic support for future ecological conservation and restoration, the development and utilization of biological resources, and the prevention and control of significant epidemics.
13 species of bats have been recorded in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang), belonging to 1 family and 8 genera (Huang et al., 2007; Jiang, 2015; Zhang, 2021), the largest region/province in China. The 13 bat species are derived from these three references (Huang et al., 2007; Jiang, 2015; Zhang, 2021), but they vary in age, by author, and with different results. Bat diversity in Xinjiang needs to be studied urgently. However, most of them lack of evidence of distribution (Abduriyim et al., 2022) and more locations unstudied. In addition, little is known about their chances of surviving and the dangers they are exposed to (Feijó et al., 2019). In order to provide a foundation for the conservation and management of bats in Xinjiang, particularly in Komul city, we employed the Song Meter SM4 bio-acoustic recorder to study the species and distribution of bats in Komul, Xinjiang.